


i'm lost and wondering (but if i can reach you)

by Olemonade



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, I Tried, Light Angst, callum is mentioned only in name, enemies to friends to enemies, love getting sadness out through fighting, lowercase for the aesthetic, sorry if the characterization sucks, why is that not a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 21:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17885633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olemonade/pseuds/Olemonade
Summary: as much as rayla pretends to be, she’s not an asshole. least of all when pretty girls are crying right in front of her.or, alternatively, my take on what happens when claudia tells callum about his father and comes back crying.





	i'm lost and wondering (but if i can reach you)

**Author's Note:**

> this is me expressing my annoyance at the fact that s2 had barely any raydia interactions. anyway, wow how good was s2 am i right?? so much happened and i actually really enjoyed it. anyway kudos & comments are always appreciated, tell me what you thought of s2? what did you like what did you hate. or don't, idm.

as much as rayla pretends to be, she’s not an asshole.

so when rayla lets claudia pass while crying, it takes her a split second to quickly grab onto the edge of her cloak and stop her from moving any further.

“wait” rayla huffs to herself and watches as claudia turns to her, wiping her tears.

“what do you want?” there’s a mix of anger, frustration and distrust in claudia’s voice, but rayla tries to not be affected. she doesn’t like people crying, least of all pretty girls like claudia. even if she is a giant pain in the ass. and an enemy, she adds as an afterthought. and as much as rayla wants to comfort the other, she doesn’t exactly know how to, so she says the first thing that comes to mind.

“do you want to spar?” her voice comes out cool and detached, as if the beauty crying in front of her doesn’t slightly upset her.

claudia’s face goes through several emotions, anger once again, wonder and then confusion, which is reflected in her voice.

“did- you- what?” she finally settles and rayla almost wants to laugh in her face, but she figures that wouldn’t be exactly appreciated by the other and instead shrugs.

“do you want to spar?” she repeats, waiting for the other girl to respond.

claudia tenses, because who the hell does the elf think she is and almost snaps out a “no” when she pauses for a second and thinks it over a bit more. she bites her lip and then nods, “fine”

rayla smirks, delighted at the fact that she’ll get to fight her, but also at the fact that she knows that this will help get the sadness out of the other. she can already see a fire building in her eyes and knows that it’s going to be an interesting interaction.

there’s a clearing a little ways away to the right of the temple and rayla leads claudia there. as much as she’s tempted to fight her as soon as possible, the place is too beautiful to destroy so heading somewhere else is the better option.

 

“i’m glad you agreed, now i can beat you up and callum won’t be able to say anything” rayla snarks to claudia and watches as the girl throws her a glare.

“i could say the same about you, i don’t know why he likes you, but this’ll show him that you can’t protect him and he’ll come back with us.” claudia puts her nose up in the air arrogantly, “come on now. let’s fight?”

rayla puts out her hand in a stop motion, “wait. there need to be some rules to this.”

claudia rolls her eyes, “oh sure, like you’ll play fair.”

gasping, rayla puts her hand to her chest and fakes a wounded expression, “you hurt me with your mistrust. of course i will.”

claudia almost lets out a little laugh at that, but instead huffs, trying to pretend she doesn’t find the elf amusing, “fine, what rules?”

rayla’s face turns serious, “look i obviously don’t like you very much, but callum does and that means i can’t hurt you nor can you hurt me, because he likes me too.”

rayla scowls when she hears claudia scoff at her statement, but presses on, “with that in mind, i’m proposing that we don’t use anything that would seriously hurt either of us, like magic or me with any fatal hits.” she pauses for a second to stare at the girl, “fair?”

it’s actually a good idea and she has to admit that she’s right, so claudia nods easily, “yeah sure.”

 

rayla grins and launches herself at the other, swords out.

taken off guard, claudia barely manages to throw herself out of the way and hears the swords slice the air behind her, “you didn’t even say start!”

there’s a laugh and a “start” and the elf is so obviously mocking her that claudia twists angrily right in time to see rayla at her back and throws a left hook that the other doesn’t manage to block in time from the surprise. it hits her with an “oof” and she sees rayla wince, before the daggers are twisting on her.

this kind of isn’t fair, claudia thinks, considering that she’s a ranged user, but the adrenaline is running through her veins and she is not about to lose to an elf so she runs forward as fast as she can, glad that she had some lessons of close combat from soren and just in general from watching him practice.

the elf is insanely fast and her swords keep slashing through the air in practiced and smooth motions that make claudia almost jealous. she manages to stay clear off the path of the swords every time though and although not really sure how she does it, claudia is glad. however she really needs a hit in and when she sees rayla over-extend for a split-second, claudia catches it in time and moves in to attack.

something is wrong though as she sees rayla’s face is too relaxed and she tries to stop herself, but doesn’t manage to.

claudia having fallen for the faint makes rayla able to push her down on the ground with her swords, aiming not to hurt. claudia is sprawled on the ground, black hair in her face and panting for breath as she glares at the elf who is standing over her with a smug look on her face.

rayla motions to her with a smirk, almost as if to say, “is that all you got?” and claudia growls in frustration, quickly chanting and then throwing a fireball at her, making rayla dodge in a panic.

“wow hey, we said no magic!” she shouts at her.

claudia shrugs while getting up, “i take it back” and throws another fireball at her making rayla leap out of the way again. this girl is seriously not right in the head rayla thinks and screams bloody murder in her mind, pretending that she isn’t rather enjoying the whole situation.

rayla leaps up into a tree and watches claudia, who in her mind has never looked prettier than in this moment. she’s kind of stunned actually, because the light from the fireball is reflecting back onto her and she has a wild glint in her eyes that makes rayla gulp. whether from attraction or fear, she doesn’t know, but she definitely wouldn’t mind having this moment put on pause forever.

there’s no time for admiring though, because now there’s a spear made from earth zooming at her and rayla has to jump onto another tree. this continues for a couple of moments as claudia just pumps out anything that she has on her person to take magic from while rayla continuously dodges.

it’s surprising that no one has come to look at what’s going on from all the commotion and screaming that claudia is doing, but it doesn’t really matter. all that they’re missing out on is a good show.

bored of dodging and seeing claudia tire herself out, rayla leaps right at her quickly and slashes with her swords, but claudia manages to trip and stumble back which makes rayla narrowly miss. growling, she steps forward again and slashes out with her sword, annoyed at the continuous misses. this time her swords manage to hit and there’s a spurt of blood that comes from the giant cut.

seeing this, rayla freezes in panic, sure she had wanted to spar, but she didn’t actually mean to hurt claudia. the other girl falls to the ground with a shout of pain and rayla quickly sheathes her swords.

“shit. are you okay?”, rayla quickly gripes around for some bandages but doesn’t find anything and curses.

she looks around for anything she can use very quickly to staunch the blood and in the end just shoots up and runs back to the house to grab some supplies. no one seems to be awake which she’s happy about and soon enough rayla is back with what is needed.

 

claudia is lying there in the same position, not saying anything except crying out with pain and fuck rayla genuinely feels so terrible, so she tries to be delicate when trying to help. the human doesn’t even resist, probably not really aware of anything except the pain and soon the bandage is wrapped tightly around the wound, blood soaking into it.

rayla is biting her bottom lip, worried. she knows callum would never forgive her for hurting claudia, but what makes her slightly terrified is that she knows deep down that she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself either.

some time passes and rayla just sits there, head in her hands, a war playing out inside her mind.

there’s the sound of someone sitting up and rayla doesn’t have to open her eyes to know that it’s claudia.

it seems however, like she’s not the only one annoyed with herself, because claudia is beating herself up too.

she obviously wasn’t thinking earlier, having just wanted to stop feeling so goddamn sad so she agreed to the spar, which in hindsight wasn’t all that fair cause without magic she was handicapped while the other had her swords. it should have been a fist fight and claudia says this out loud so rayla can hear.

“you’re just a sore loser.” rayla grumbles, slightly mollified at the fact that she doesn’t seem upset about it and claudia is about to snap when she hears, “i’m sorry though, i should have thought that through a little more. i really didn’t mean to hurt you” she’s surprised, the elf actually has a heart apparently and claudia fights a smile threatening to emerge.

her stomach does hurt though when she breathes and she winces in pain from every little movement, the cut bleeding into the bandage and some absorbing into her clothes. she hadn’t expected the elf to help her earlier, there had even been a perfect situation for rayla to get rid of her, but she didn’t. it kind of makes the elf seem not too bad.

she winces again and claudia would heal herself, but thinks this is a fitting punishment for what she had done and leaves it be, until suddenly a four-fingered hand is in front of her holding out some kind of glass bottle with a purple liquid inside that sloshes around.

 

she looks at the outstretched hand and the elf who’s looking at her with an expression she can’t quite place, “what?”

rayla rolls her eyes at the clear distrust, “it’s something to heal your wound. take it.”

claudia hesitates though and rayla rolls her eyes again, at this point if she continues to keep doing it then soon enough they’ll be stuck like that, “what’s wrong? are you planning on not healing it or something?”

the air stills for a moment and rayla observes the human closely and what she sees really messes her up, because is claudia dumb or something?  
“you’re not planning on healing yourself are you.” rayla states, surprised at her correct guess earlier and stares at the other as claudia glances away almost guiltily,

“that’s none of your business.”

rayla blinks and laughs out loud, startling claudia, who looks at her puzzled but also with a building frustration, “why are you laughing?”

she sees the elf shake her head and although the laugh just now seemed mocking, her voice comes out kind, almost patient, “look, you may hate yourself for telling callum, but he needed to hear it. i’m actually surprised that you had the courage to do so, when even i had to psyche myself up for this long, so if you think that punishing yourself will make everything better – trust me, it won’t.”

rayla inhales slightly, in need of air. this is actually the most she’s said to the human in one sentence, so she shrugs, trying to pretend she doesn’t actually care. “whatever though, do what you want. this isn’t my problem.” but puts down the potion in the middle of each other, as a sort of peace offering.

the clearing is now silent, conversation clearly finished and both girls are sat there, backs against the trees a feet away from each other. the moonlight makes the surroundings quite beautiful in the night and there’s a sort of peacefulness to the area. they stay like this for what seems like hours.

 

“are you feeling any better?” claudia hears a quiet voice ask, breaking the silence that had fallen upon the two.

“what are you talking about?” she snaps out, trying to deny anything that the elf had seen. being noticed as weak by the enemy is bad, her father taught her that. even though claudia is truly grateful, for the distraction that the elf had brought - both from her emotions and the mission she was granted. however it was probably just another way for the other to antagonize her though and claudia doesn’t know exactly why she finds herself feeling disappointed at the thought.

rayla sighs, she’s rather frustrated with the human, but she can’t really hold it against her so she stands up, brushing the dirt off of her clothes. the moon is shining brightly and she draws in its power to her, feeling it settle warmly against her body.

“never mind, I’m going on patrol now. go get your beauty sleep, you’re sorely lacking” rayla says teasingly and turns around to go back when she swears that she can hear a quiet “thanks” coming from behind and smiles to herself, glad that she succeeded. although rayla shows no sign that she heard it as she continues walking off into the night.

 

there’s a thought ringing clearly in both of their minds as they’re being separated and that is that even though they had just experienced something that seemed like friendship, the next day would bring them back to square one – being enemies.


End file.
